Big 12 commish: Most Aggies don’t want SEC

DALLAS – Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said Tuesday he doesn’t believe most Texas A&M fans would want the Aggies to move to the Southeastern Conference.

“I was trouncing around this neck of the woods back in my (NCAA) enforcement days,” Beebe said during the last of two Big 12 football media days. “There is a contingent at Texas A&M of thoughtful people, I’m sure, who for 20 or more years have wanted to go to the … somewhere else. Whenever something happens that group is going to come out and say this is our chance, let’s go.

“I remember back when I was an (NCAA) investigator coming through here I’d hear that in the early 80s, before the Big 12 was even a concept. That’s understandable. I’m thankful, I’m grateful that the majority of A&M graduates and fans do not feel that way. I’m strongly of the belief their coaches don’t feel that way, and their administration and the professionals who work there don’t feel that way.”

The issue of A&M to the SEC has arisen again thanks to the $300 million Longhorn Network, funded and run by ESPN. Last Thursday A&M president R. Bowen Loftin described the state of the Big 12 as one of “uncertainty,” although Beebe argued Tuesday that Loftin was directing that word toward the upstart network and not the league.

Beebe said the A&M brokers “must not have been feeling that way for years” regarding a move to another conference, “because they’ve had a number of times through history when they’ve looked at that option and they haven’t gone in that direction.”

“Look, I’m sitting in this chair and of course I would say this, I think (it would be) the wrong decision,” Beebe said. “I think it’s best when you have that kind of rivalry and that kind of feeling about another school, it’s best to stay connected. That’s what makes it fun – that’s what makes it exciting.

“When you get disconnected from your geographic region and your rivals, I think you’ve got a big problem.”

An ESPN reporter relayed to Beebe that an A&M official had said Monday that he believed about “60 percent” of Aggies want to move to the SEC.

“I don’t know where he’s getting that from, that’s not the sense I have from those folks,” Beebe said. “That issue has been around that institution for a long time, but thankfully most of the coaches and administrators and others are adamant about wanting to be in the Big 12. (Athletic director) Bill Byrne expressed that yesterday.”

Beebe was asked by the ESPN reporter what A&M fans would be thinking 10 years from now if the Aggies were to bolt for the SEC in the immediate future.

“Then they would be saying 80 percent of our people (wanted) to stay in the Big 12,” Beebe said, smiling, “and thought that we made a bad decision.”